Making an impact with research

The GENECO winter meeting was held Tuesday, February 14. PhD students, postdocs and senior researchers, in total 44, attended the meeting at Ideon Science Park. Most participants were from Lund but a few came from Gothenburg and Kalmar to attend.

In the afternoon Dan Csontos, editorial director of Elevate Scientific, held a combined seminar and workshop themed ”How to make an impact with your research”.

Focus on the story

Dan Csontos has been an editor for Nature Physics among others. He is an expert on how to write scientific papers and grant applications to increase the chance of getting a yes from the publishing companies and the funders.

Every year there are millions of scientific papers being published. Many of them are never cited and consequently do not make much of an impact.

Dan Csontos

One thing Dan Csontos emphazises is the story itself. It does not matter whether it is a presentation, a full scientific paper or a grant application; to have a story and present it in a way that catches the eye of, for example an editor, is crucial.

Interpret your results

He also mentioned that researchers sometimes miss out on the interpretation of the results they have found. He also stated the importance of the cover letter. His advice is to put time and effort into the interpretation and to be bold when you write a cover letter. A cover letter should use less jargong and technical terms than the paper itself. For example the first couple of sentences in a cover letter could answer what has been studied, what the findings are and why this is important. Do not hesitate to draw conclusions in the letter.